S3.Translator, popular translator extension available for Firefox on AMO, another extension from the same developer Screengrab have been removed by Mozilla from Firefox add-ons Store. Translator extension which updated last time to version 6.19 on October 2018, has 3 lakh users. The developer claims his extension has been removed after he requested users to activate the collection of statistics, which is disabled by default in Extension settings.
Since Chrome has Google Translate built-in you don’t need to install any extension to translate pages to English. This is not case with Firefox, though Mozilla has added Google Translation API support to the browser, users need to purchase API key to use the service in Firefox. An extension such as S3.Translator makes it easy to translate pages without the need to visit Google Translate website and it offers options in Settings to automatically detect and translate HTTP sites and hide Google Panel on translated pages.
Here is what developer said in a forum where he offers support for the add-on ” I did not delete it. Firefox developers removed all versions due to the fact that I ask users to activate the collection of statistics.”
In 6.19 version of S3. Translator we noticed Statistics collection is disabled by default in Settings.
It was reported here that older versions of both extensions –Screengrab and S3. Translator–contains a tracker and sent POST requests to developer blog. The developer seems to have overcome those negatives in the next version by fixing policy issues. But a comment from another user in that page confirms that new version of Extension did prompt user after installation to “allow statistic collection or not” which seems made Mozilla remove the extension from Add-ons site. Another report on trello about S3.Translator doing bad things when the user visits shopping sites.
It’s interesting to note that the developer’s other extensions including S3.Google Translator, available for Thunderbird are unaffected and both extensions mentioned in the article are available on Chrome Web Store at the time of writing.
Looking for Alternate extensions to translate Pages in Firefox? Try Google Translator for Firefox by nobzol or this extension. Do let us know which extension you use for Translation needs in Firefox in the comments below.
If I cannot use S3.translator then I will not use any other extension.
Anyone that used this extension knows that it cannot be compared with the others.
I’m making a very hard use of the Google translate portal and I send all my good thoughts to Mozilla any and every time I have to translate something.
This is it!